Friday, April 17, 2009

The Page 99 Test

English novelist, poet, critic and editor Ford Madox Ford once said "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you."We’ve applied this test to our new crime fiction release The Shanghai Murders by David Rotenberg. Here’s page 99 (the main character Detective Zhong Fong and his colleagues are at a gruesome crime scene in an alleyway in Shanghai):

Over and over again, Fong was approached with“What are you looking for?” And over and over again,he said, “I’ll know when I see it.” So they brought himeverything they found. A small handful of one-fen coins,half a well-leafed-through Hong Kong porno magazine,bits of several different kinds of food in various degreesof decay, a sole from the toe of a lady’s shoe, and manymore things—none of which pleased Fong. He hadalready found the piece of heart and the strip from theJAL airsickness bag, where he thought they would be.The Chinese driver informed the police that his Zairiancharge never carried a wallet, that he, the driver, alwayswent in after his client was finished and paid the bills.So that accounted for the wallet’s whereabouts.As the driver headed downtown with a police officerto make a full statement, Wang Jun approached Fong.“One hand points to the guy’s ID.”“The other to the second part of the message,” repliedFong.“Which is?” asked Wang Jun.“Which is what we are looking for. No! What we’llkeep looking for until we find.”Wang Jun slipped a cigarette into his mouth. “Didyou notice that the body pieces weren’t put togethervery well this time?”“I noticed that.”“Could it be that our guy is slipping? Maybe he madea mistake.”“Perhaps.”